


Twelve Years Later

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, First War with Voldemort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-19 00:46:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15498543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: “And how would you describe your relationship to Sirius Black?”He leaned back in the chair. The lights were too bright, he had slept perhaps three hours last night and his head hurt like hell. “So, that’s what this is about. You want to know about Sirius.”





	Twelve Years Later

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by ambruises, thank you!!
> 
> This story is inspired by the season one of the tv-show True Detective, so good! But you absolutely don't have to know the show to read this.
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com)!

“And how would you describe your relationship to Sirius Black?”  
  
He leaned back in the chair. The lights were too bright, he had slept perhaps three hours last night and his head hurt like hell. “So, that’s what this is about. You want to know about Sirius.”  
  
“We’re only trying to understand what happened in 1981.”  
  
“You want me to talk about Sirius,” he said in a voice that came out oddly desperate. Maybe it was because of the lack of sleep. “Does Albus know I’m here?”  
  
“Mr. Lupin, we are following a certain protocol –“  
  
“Of course he does. What was your question again?”  
  
“How would you describe your relationship to Mr. Black?”  
  
“Past.”  
  
“You haven’t tried to contact him in Azkaban.”  
  
“Of course I haven’t. But you know that already.”  
  
“But the two of you lived together from August 1980 ‘til November 1981.”  
  
“We shared a flat.”  
  
“You were close.”  
  
“Living in London costs money. I didn’t have a lot. He helped me out.”  
  
“If Mr. Black tried to contact you, how would you react?”  
  
“Badly. He got my three best friends killed. Could you possibly tell me what this is about?”  
  
“Unfortunately we can’t give you any information about the investigation for now, Mr. Lupin. But we would like to hear about the time during which you and Mr. Black were close.”  
  
He closed his eyes just for a second. When he opened them again, the headache was worse. “Okay. Go on then. What do you want to know?”  
  
  
**  
  
  
Later, he took a bus to his flat in East London. At first he had begun riding by bus just to have something to do with his time. All those people whom he didn’t know and who didn’t know him and didn’t care to. He could read a book and pretend he was anyone, and half an hour would pass by. Also, it was quite improbable that he would start crying on the bus.  
  
These days, he only cried when he let himself. But he had grown used to buses. Sometimes he watched people, wondering what it would be like to be someone else. Once he had got a phone number from an oddly attractive man he had apparently been staring at. He had thought about calling for at least a week before deciding it was too late anyway.  
  
The flat smelled of tea and dust. He should probably clean it soon. But then again, one got used to the smell of dust in a few minutes, and no one visited him, so why did it even matter? He put the kettle on and waited for the water to boil, and then he sat by the table, holding his cup of tea on his knee because the table was covered with books. He left the bottle of whiskey in the bag where it was. It would fix nothing for him anyway, like it never had.  
  
_And how would you describe your relationship to Sirius Black_ , the one with the pink hair and sharp eyes had asked, and he had wondered what they would ask next. _Mr. Lupin, it has come to our attention that you still have dreams about Mr. Black. Care to tell more?_  
  
He read an averagely bad novel until two at night, then waited for three hours before falling asleep just before the morning traffic woke him up.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Mr. Black bought the apartment in early June 1980. You moved in the beginning of August.”  
  
“I already told you I didn’t have a lot of money. You have my file, don’t you? You know that I –”  
  
“Mr. Lupin,” said the one who was clearly trying to sound friendly, “we would like you tell us about that anyway. Whose idea it was at first? To share the flat?”  
  
He stared at them for a while before giving up. “It was Sirius’ idea.”  
  
“And why do you think he proposed that?”  
  
“The place where I was living at the time was… it was more of a closet than a room. One tiny window, just enough space for a desk and a bed. Sirius hated it.”  
  
“He hated that you lived in such compromising conditions?”  
  
“We were friends. You know that already. Obviously I’ve regretted it the past twelve years but… how many times are you going to make me say it?”  
  
The pink-haired one shifted the papers on the table. “Probably a few more. Please, go on, Mr. Lupin.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
He remembered Sirius sitting at a table so small their knees were brushing against each other all the time, or maybe Sirius did it on purpose. They had been in London for perhaps three weeks and everything seemed relatively normal except that the number of people going missing or dying without an explanation had gone higher. James, Lily, and Peter had come back a few days ago and the five of them were in a bar two blocks away from Lily and James’. Lily had worn a dark green dress and black heels and she looked like she had been crying, and James was paler than ever in the middle of July. Peter looked shaken but then again, Peter had looked shaken all the time since Hogwarts. The music was loud and a girl at the next table was smoking and blowing all the smoke in Remus’ exact direction. But all in all it wasn’t a bad evening.  
  
“I bought a flat,” Sirius said. He wasn’t drinking. He often didn’t, and later Remus wondered what the hell that had meant.  
  
“Really?” Peter asked.  
  
“I can’t keep staying at home when we’re in London,” Sirius said, “or with James and Lily. They’re going to throw me out as soon as the baby comes.”  
  
“I don’t think we’re going to stay in London for long,” Remus said. “Someone was talking about people disappearing in a tiny village near Birmingham. I have a feeling that Dumbledore will send us there.”  
  
“You’re just dreaming about that because you liked it so much this spring in Scotland,” Sirius said and winked at him, the bastard. “But, listen. Remus, you need to move in with me.”  
  
Lily and James were still dancing. Peter took another sip of his beer. The music was still on.  
  
“What?” Remus asked. His voice came out oddly dry.  
  
“Come on. The place where you’re living is awful.”  
  
“You can’t just –“  
  
“I just did.”  
  
“I can’t afford to pay you a proper rent.”  
  
“I wouldn’t take it anyway, you git. Think about it, Remus. _Think about it._ ”  
  
That was exactly what he didn’t want to do.  
  
“It’s a nice place,” Sirius said. “It has a balcony. And a bedroom. And a… kitchen. It has everything.”  
  
“It’s safer to live with someone,” Peter said, sounding a bit sad. “If something happens, the chances are better.”  
  
“Nothing is going to happen,” Sirius said. On the table lay a newspaper with big, terrifying letters,  telling of a young couple who had disappeared in their home in the middle of the day. Later, Remus wondered if perhaps Sirius wasn’t an optimist after all. Perhaps Sirius had just known more than the rest of them. But then again, Remus had had time to wonder about many things. “I need fresh air. Come with me.”  
  
He blinked. “Sirius –“  
  
“We’ll be back in a moment,” Sirius said to Peter and grabbed Remus by the sleeve.  
  
Outside it was raining. People walked by with umbrellas and their steps echoed on the wet asphalt. Remus stopped beside the door but Sirius didn’t let go of his arm, instead he was dragged forward and pushed by the shoulder to the side alley in between the stone wall and the row of garbage bins.  
  
“What the hell?” he managed to ask before Sirius stopped him and kissed him on the mouth.  
  
The wall was wet and cold. The water crept through the layers of his coat and the stones poked him at the shoulder blades. Sirius’ thigh was resting against his, and then in between his, his breathing got stuck in his throat, somewhere else the steps were fading, and he grabbed Sirius’ coat with both hands and kissed back until Sirius bit him gently on the lower lip.  
  
“What the hell, Remus,” Sirius said against the corner of his mouth, “what do you mean, what the hell? Think about it, the two of us living together. I could fuck you every night and no one would wonder.”  
  
He tried not to think about it. ”I told you. I can’t pay –“  
  
Sirius kissed him hard enough that he had to break away to cough. “Shut up,” Sirius said, fingers resting on Remus’ neck so he couldn’t pull too much farther away, “shut the fuck up about the money. Don’t you want it? Don’t you want to leave the bar together and go to our place and fuck in an actual bed that smells like both of us?”  
  
Of course he wanted that. “It sounds like trouble. People will talk.”  
  
“Who fucking cares if they –”  
  
“Dumbledore won’t let us work together if he hears about this.”  
  
Sirius took a deep breath, placing both of his hands on Remus’s shoulders. “We’ll tell them it’s only because you don’t have money. And we’re friends. They know I’m rich as fuck. They’ll think it’s logical.”  
  
“I have to keep working with you,” Remus said, “because then I know you’re alright. I know where you are and that you’re alive. I need that. I’d rather give up fucking than send you away for weeks with someone else with no way to check up on you.”  
  
“You’re an idiot.”  
  
“We should go back before Peter comes looking for us.”  
  
“We’re going to go to the flat tonight. I don’t have any furniture yet but we’ll think of something.”  
  
“Sirius –“  
  
“Tell me you don’t want to,” Sirius said and kissed him.  
  
It turned out that he loved the flat. It was empty and smelled vaguely of a dog and if you sat in an exact spot on the living room floor, the scenery through the windows was quite amazing. And Sirius kissed him the moment they had the door locked properly, took the coat off his shoulders and pushed him against the wall. He kissed back, his face full of Sirius’ hair that was falling from the bun, his hands reaching for Sirius’ jeans and zipper and pants, and in the middle of it he wondered vaguely if they could do this gently. Maybe they had to be in a rush so that they wouldn’t stop to think about it and realise how probable it was that everything would end up badly for both of them or, to be honest, at least for him. But he stopped thinking about that as soon as Sirius had him on the floor, which was softer than it was supposed to be, and the light from the streets reflected on the ceiling, which he stared at over Sirius’ left shoulder as everything inside of him shifted and moved and then finally went quiet again.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“When was the first time you visited Sirius’ apartment?”  
  
“I don’t know. Maybe in August.”  
  
“But you had seen it before you moved in.”  
  
“Yeah, I think so. I think he showed it to me one afternoon, maybe in early August. Peter was with us.”  
  
“Did the three of you spend a lot of time together? You, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew?”  
  
“Well, James and Lily had the baby at the end of July. They were pretty busy. That kind of left the three of us.”  
  
“And what do you think, were you closer to Sirius than you were to Peter?”  
  
There were steps echoing from the corridor through the closed door. “I really couldn’t say.”  
  
  
  
**  
  
  
It was early August when he brought his stuff to the flat. Sirius was sitting in the sofa, his bare feet on  the armrest.  
  
“Is that all?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Really? You don’t have more stuff?”  
  
“You told me to get rid of the bed.”  
  
Sirius grinned. “Yeah. We’re going to tell them you’re sleeping on the sofa.”  
  
“But I’m not going to be sleeping on the sofa.”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“You’re mad,” Remus said, probably not for the first time. Later, it seemed like a sign. Clearly there had to be something wrong with Sirius, because who the hell invited someone in just like that, as if they had an actual relationship, as if they weren’t just two friends fucking, but rather married like Lily and James. Sirius had to be playing with him. It had to be a joke or a dream.  
  
But then again, everything seemed like a sign afterwards.  
  
“You look like you’re thinking about something stupid,” Sirius said on the first morning, stopping in the kitchen doorway, half of his hair having escaped from the bun and his t-shirt pulled on inside out. “Stop that.”  
  
“I need coffee.”  
  
“Sure. Just look for it.”  
  
“I slept in your bed.”  
  
“Fucking hell,” Sirius said in the soft voice he usually used after sex. “As if I hadn’t noticed. You kept poking my stomach with your knees.”  
  
“What about when you want to fuck someone else?”  
  
“What about when you want to fuck someone else?” Sirius said, sitting at the table, throwing glances at his own shirt. “I think my shirt is inside out.”  
  
“But we aren’t…”  
  
“We aren’t what?”  
  
Remus shook his head.  
  
“Just fucking say it, Remus.”  
  
“We aren’t _together._ ”  
  
“What do you mean, together? What do you want? A ring?”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
“You want me to tell you that I’m not going to die,” Sirius said and took a deep breath. “That’s it, isn’t it?”  
  
“Not really,” Remus said, because since perhaps 1979 he had been quite certain he was the one who was going to get killed. Later, he sometimes thought, wasn’t it ironic, that he was the only one who lived? “Not that I wouldn’t… surely you know what would happen to me if you… if I lost you.”  
  
“What?” Sirius asked, sounding genuinely interested. Sometimes he really hated Sirius.  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“What would happen to you,” Sirius said in a gentle voice, “if you lost me?”  
  
“I can’t find the coffee.”  
  
“I think I left it in the bedroom yesterday morning.”  
  
“In the _bedroom?_ ”  
  
“Do you want to tell people about us? Is that why you’re moping?”  
  
“I’m not moping. And, no. Of course not.”  
  
For a moment he thought Sirius looked sad, but probably it was because of the light. “Not even James?”  
  
“What would we say to him?” he said and realised a bit too late he actually wanted to know.  
  
“That we’re fucking, of course,” Sirius said. “And that you’re in love with me.”  
  
Remus made the coffee even if his hands shook just a little. Easy rain fell on the windows and after a while Sirius took his shirt off and pulled it back on right.  
  
“Madly in love with me,” Sirius said, trying to see over his shoulder, apparently to check the scar he had gotten on his upper back the last week in Scotland. “Wouldn’t you say?”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“We could just tell James that we’re together. See how he takes it. And then Peter. They won’t tell Dumbledore.”  
  
“No,” Remus said.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“So, Mr. Lupin, you didn’t have anyone special during those years? 1980 and 1981?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“No relationship?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Must have been lonely,” said the friendly one.  
  
_Fuck you_ , he thought. But it was one of the things he had regretted most, at least in the first few weeks. It hadn’t made sense, of course. If anyone had known, they wouldn’t have let him go that easily. They’d have thought he had to know something about what Sirius had done. But as things were, Dumbledore talked to him perhaps half an hour and then sent him home. He was slightly drunk already, so he walked through the streets not sure where he was going but ending up at the flat anyway, and there he crawled to the bed that still smelled of Sirius and him and drank the rest of the bottle and woke up late in the next afternoon to sunshine on his face. And no one knew why he was so sad. No one knew he had been madly in love with Sirius.  
  
But he hadn’t thought about it like that for years. Surely it hadn’t been _love._ He hadn’t known Sirius at all and you couldn’t love someone you didn’t know.  
  
“And you’re currently living alone, Mr. Lupin, aren’t you?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Someone might think you haven’t moved on from what happened in 1981.”  
  
He stared at her until she blinked.  
  
“Well, then. What was it like? Living with Sirius Black?”  
  
He shook his head. “I don’t know. We were roommates. It was alright.”  
  
“He wasn’t difficult?”  
  
“What do you mean, difficult?”  
  
“We mean -,” said the one who, all this time, had stared at Remus with a look that suggested Remus was lying, “- were there any signs? Of what he was doing? As you said, the two of you were close.”  
  
“All of us were. He was close with James and Lily and Peter, too. None of us saw it coming.”  
  
“But you were living with him.”  
  
The pink-haired woman pushed a fresh cup of coffee at him. He took it and held it between his hands, but his hands were trembling and he didn’t think he could swallow. “Yes.”  
  
“And you didn’t know what he was doing.”  
  
“Of course I didn’t.”  
  
“You don’t look like a man who could fool anyone, Mr. Lupin. But then again, Sirius Black didn’t, either. And that’s why we’re here.”  
  
He took a deep breath. “And why are we here, exactly? Why’re you asking this after twelve years?”  
  
“We’re just trying to clarify some details,” said the pink-haired one. “Maybe you’d like to have a break?”  
  
It was raining outside. Remus stood five minutes on the pavement, his hands pushed deep into his pockets, wishing he hadn’t managed to quit smoking.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Were you aware of his sexual inclination?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“How did it come up?”  
  
After this he would certainly buy a bottle of whiskey. He had been sober for almost five weeks now. That was pretty good. No one would blame him for relapsing tonight. “I don’t know. Maybe he told me.”  
  
“He told you?”  
  
“I don’t remember. It might’ve been just, you know, him hitting on a man in a bar. Something like that. We were close friends, the five of us.”  
  
“Was he seeing someone during the time you were living with him?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Did he bring men home? For a night?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Well, we were quite busy. With the Prewett case, I mean. And the whole thing.”  
  
“The whole thing?”  
  
“The war.”  
  
“Ah,” said the nice one, ”that. So, you can’t give us any names, Mr. Lupin? Any names at all? Anyone he might have been seeing?”  
  
He blinked and moved his cup of coffee on the table. The both of them were smiling. “No.”  
  
“Not even Fabian Prewett?”  
  
  
**  
  
  
It took him an oddly long time to realise he was jealous of Fabian Prewett. It happened in November 1979, or possibly in December, because there were Christmas decorations floating from the ceiling, red and gold everywhere, and green, dark green that matched the shirt Sirius was wearing. They were having a party at the office and Remus had had a few drinks already, but so had everyone else. By far, he had spent the majority of the evening trying to figure out why the fuck Sirius didn’t realise it was _obvious_ what he was doing with Fabian Prewett. They were talking _all the time._ And a few times Sirius rested his hand on Fabian’s shoulder, and not for a second but rather at least _ten._ _Clearly_ they were sleeping together. And it wasn’t news to Remus, of course not, he had known for weeks, because Sirius had fucking _told_ him once when they had been pretty drunk. And he didn’t mind. Of course he didn’t mind. It was just that he didn’t realise why Sirius had to be so fucking _obvious_ about it. It wasn’t _professional._  
  
A little before midnight Lily dragged him to the bathroom, holding him by the wrist with a grip that was surprisingly tight for a drunk person. Then he realised Lily wasn’t drunk at all, but rather crying a little. Lily pushed him into the last stall, locked the door, and told him she was pregnant.  
  
“What?” he said but Lily just looked at him and kept wiping her eyes so that the rest of what was left of her make-up turned into gold and black mess around her eyes.  
  
“Fucking hell,” Lily said and for a second it looked almost as if she was going to laugh, “fucking hell, Remus. Hug me.”  
  
“I thought you wanted kids,” he said into Lily’s hair and realised right away he didn’t have a clue if Lily wanted kids.  
  
“Maybe,” Lily said to his shoulder, “one day. Not now. Not in the middle of a _war._ ”  
  
He wondered what the hell he was supposed to say, and then the door opened.  
  
“It’s empty,” called Sirius’ hoarse, smiling, slightly desperate voice.  
  
“We could just go to my place,” said someone else. It was Fabian. Lily was hugging Remus more tightly now and the light in the bathroom seemed to fade. There was an odd sound in the music echoing from the office and after a while he realised it was his own heart drumming in his ears.  
  
“I always wanted to do it here,” Sirius said. He didn’t sound as drunk as he should’ve been to do this, Remus thought. “You know, just under Dumbledore’s nose. All those people working around the corner and they don’t have a clue.”  
  
“You’re mad,” Fabian said.  
  
Remus closed his eyes.  
  
“Let’s go to the stall,” Sirius said, and there was a sound of a door opening and closing and locking up, and then a sound of a zipper. Lily sat down on the toilet seat and kept on crying without a sound, and in the next stall there was a muffled sound that clearly came from Sirius. Remus opened his mouth because they couldn’t possibly stay here, they should leave right away, _he_ couldn’t hear this. But it sounded like Fabian already had his hand or possibly his mouth in Sirius’ pants, and Remus’ head was heavy and dull and however much he opened his mouth, he couldn’t say anything. It was too late. And also, he wanted to go to the stall where Sirius and Fabian were, maybe break the door with his shoulder like they did in the pictures, and punch Fabian in the face and then push Sirius against the once-again locked door and drop onto the floor in between Sirius’ knees. Or maybe he would kiss Sirius first.  
  
He sat down on the floor, and Lily cried, and it lasted forever until finally Sirius came and it sounded like something broke.  
  
They left the party together, Sirius and he. Sirius was going to home to Grimmauld Place and he was staying with Peter at the time, so neither of them were in a hurry. They walked for a few blocks and all he thought about was Fabian’s hand in Sirius’ pants. But maybe he was naïve. Of course they were doing everything else as well, Sirius and Fabian. So, he might as well think Sirius on the bed, facing the mattress, Fabian’s fingers holding him by his neck -  
  
“Are you together? You and Fabian?”  
  
“What?” Sirius said and glanced at him. “No. Not like that. He likes women, too. He says he’s going to get a girlfriend as soon as all this bullshit is over.”  
  
“You don’t?”  
  
Sirius shook his head and lit a cigarette.  
  
“I was there,” Remus said, “I was in the bathroom.”  
  
Sirius smiled and handed him the cigarette, but his hands were trembling too much. “Really?”  
  
“You don’t sound surprised.”  
  
“I always know where you are,” Sirius said. “Comes with the job.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I understand Mr. Black persuaded Dumbledore to give the Prewett case to you and him.”  
  
“I don’t know why he did that. And it wasn’t exactly –“  
  
“James Potter and Peter Pettigrew were supposed to investigate the Prewett murders. When Sirius heard about it, he asked Dumbledore to give the case to the two of you.”  
  
He sat back in his chair.  
  
“That happened in late December 1980, almost a year after the affair between Sirius and Fabian Prewett had ended.”  
  
“Affair?”  
  
“The two of you were working on the Prewett case for four months until Dumbledore transferred you to a new assignment. However, afterwards, you stated that none of the evidence supported Sirius being the one responsible for their deaths.”  
  
“Well, it didn’t.”  
  
“He must have hidden whatever evidence there was to find.”  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Maybe?”  
  
God, he wanted to walk out of this room. “Yeah. I suppose he must have, because we really didn’t find anything.”  
  
“Only that there was a spy.”  
  
“Well, yes. No one outside the Order knew where the Prewetts were at the time.”  
  
“Have you heard the conversation between Mr. Black and Dumbledore, the one that was recorded in late September 1981? In which they discuss the topic of what to do when there clearly is a spy in the Order?”  
  
“Yes, I have.”  
  
“We have it right here. Maybe hearing it again will refresh what you remember of that time. It’s been twelve years, after all.”  
  
“You don’t have to –“  
  
“ _I think it’s Remus_ ,” Sirius’ voice said on a record. He sounded desperate, and like he hadn’t slept in a week. “ _It has to be Remus. We found nothing on Gideon and Fabian, not in four months. And it’s just kept happening ever since. It has to be someone close to me, it has to, because how else could they fool me so easily…_ ”  
  
Remus looked the pink-haired woman in the eyes. The woman blinked and turned her gaze away.  
  
“ _If it’s him, I don’t know what I’m going to do,_ ” Sirius said, _“I just don’t. I love him. But it has to be him.”  
  
_ “A great actor,” said the man, something alike admiration lingering in his cold voice. “Fooled Dumbledore. That’s pretty well done. What do you suppose he meant when he said he loved you?”  
  
“He was always being dramatic,” Remus said with a voice a lot hoarser than he had meant to.  
  
  
**  
  
  
It was him who found Fabian and Gideon. Dumbledore had sent him and Sirius to check on them because there hadn’t been a message in three days. Fabian and Gideon had been staying in Yorkshire near a place where some of Riddle’s men were supposedly gathered, and the place they had been living in was an abandoned cottage in the middle of hills six miles outside the town. Sirius and Remus walked for maybe two miles and when they got to the cottage, Sirius was complaining loudly about his shoes. Remus walked to the door and after there was no answer, he pushed it open. At that point he thought Fabian and Gideon were just doing groundwork somewhere nearby and had forgotten to send a message to Dumbledore.  
  
“Fuck,” Sirius said, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Come the fuck out of there, Remus, they are –“  
  
They were dead, lying on the floor covered in blood, only a bit later Remus realised it was the carpet that was red. There was hardly any blood. But it was the first time he had found someone dead and his ears were ringing and his heart was going out of rhythm and he vomited right after Sirius had pulled him back from the doorway. After he was done, Sirius hugged him and kissed him on his ear and on his neck and then walked away from him before he had time to kiss back. They spent some time checking if there was anyone still nearby, but there wasn’t.  
  
He wasn’t surprised that Sirius wanted the Prewett case. James and Peter were supposed to have it, but Peter was getting more and more nervous around that time and was assigned to paperwork only a few months later, and James had a six-month-old baby who barely slept. And Sirius and Fabian had been close. Remus tried not to think about it, because he still was jealous even if he had absolutely no reason to be. Sirius hadn’t been fucking anyone else in almost a year. And Fabian was dead. It only proved that he was a petty and bitter person that he still remembered how he had wanted Fabian not to touch Sirius ever again.  
  
At first they tried to trace every connection Gideon and Fabian had had. Had they met new people lately? Made new friends? Perhaps someone they might trust enough to share a few harmless details of what they were doing for the Order? But nothing came out.  
  
“It’s someone we know,” Sirius said once, when they were still staying in Yorkshire, trying to find out if the murder had connections to what Gideon and Fabian had been investigating. Sirius was lying on the narrow bed, not wearing a shirt, his hair a mess, his stubble clearly visible, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes.  
  
“Can’t be,” Remus said.  
  
”We’ve found nothing, Remus. Someone’s hiding their traces and it has to be someone close to us, because they’re doing it well.”  
  
“You’re just assuming,” he said, and he kept saying that, until one night in late March, when the moors around them were grey like the stonewalls in the house, Sirius looked at him like he wasn’t certain anymore. He stared back at Sirius, Sirius blinked, and the look passed only to come back a week later. And then again. And again. He wanted to tell Sirius it wasn’t him, but what if he was wrong and that wasn’t what Sirius was thinking? What if Sirius was just growing tired of him? And how would it look if he started defending himself when no one had accused him yet? But sometimes when they were fucking, he saw it in Sirius’ eyes, and then he usually told Sirius to go harder, faster, _more,_ until both of them were nothing but piles of bones and flesh and blood and gasps and couldn’t think anymore. And sometimes he stopped and made Sirius ask for things he normally wouldn’t, because perhaps if he did everything Sirius wanted but hadn’t had the guts to ask other men, Sirius might keep loving him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Frankly said, Mr. Lupin, there’s a rumour.”  
  
He stared at the man. Certainly there was a rumour. But no one ever asked about it at his face, and wasn’t that great, because otherwise he ought to have denied it. _No, we weren’t fucking. No, I wasn’t in love with him. No, he didn’t fucking break my heart in million pieces.  
  
_ “It has been suggested that you and Mr. Black might have had a relationship of sexual kind,” the man said.  
  
“Excuse me?” Remus said. His voice sounded tired and cold.  
  
“That you were lovers,” said the pink-haired woman, leaning over the desk, “you had a relationship, only for some reason you couldn’t tell your friends and families about it.”  
  
He thought about Sirius and him drinking wine with Sirius’ mother or tea with his, Sirius’ hand resting on Remus’ shoulders like James and Lily had sometimes done.  
  
“You never married, Mr. Lupin,” said the man. “Statistically, you have adjusted quite poorly to the post-war life.”  
  
“All my friends died,” he said, ”or worse.”  
  
“Perhaps you could just tell us,” the woman said, ”whether you and Sirius Black were ever anything else besides friends.”  
  
“No,” he said, “we weren’t.”  
  
They looked at him as if they didn’t believe a word.  
  
  
**  
  
  
In January 1980 he couldn’t stop thinking about Sirius and Fabian fucking in the bathroom. When Dumbledore assigned him and Sirius to investigate a supposed group of Voldemort’s men in Scotland, the first thing he thought was that now Sirius couldn’t do it again. Sirius couldn’t see Fabian as long as they were here. But after they had spent a week in a tiny cottage, he began to think he would quite possibly go mad. There was a bathtub but no shower and Sirius used to sit in the tub, both feet resting on the edges, talking to Remus about the investigation or the weather or books or anything, and sometimes Remus didn’t have a clue what Sirius was talking about, because the only thing he could think about was walking over to Sirius, grabbing Sirius’ ankles, and placing them back in the tub so he could  kneel down just outside and take Sirius in his hand. That would shut Sirius up for a second at least. And when Sirius would start talking, Remus would start moving his hand so that Sirius’ breath would get stuck in his throat and whatever he had been going to say would fade away.  
  
In a few weeks they found what they had been looking for, and turned out it was Greyback with his pack. That surely explained why Dumbledore had given the case to Remus. The next day, they bought too much whiskey in the village where everyone was looking at them as if they didn’t belong there, and then they retreated to the cottage where they drank until the thought of Greyback’s face finally blurred. At that point, they were both sitting on the sofa that was still too small even after they had tried to fix it a little. Sirius’ knee was resting against Remus’ and Sirius’ eyes were oddly slow, always coming back to Remus.  
  
“Sometimes,” Sirius said, “I think that Dumbledore doesn’t give a shit about what happens to us. He sent you here even though he knows, he fucking _knows_ what Greyback did to you –”  
  
“It’s okay.”  
  
“No, it’s not,” Sirius said, raising his hand and placing it on Remus’ knee, only it landed on his thigh. Sirius’ fingers pressed lightly against the fabric. “I know that if we win this fucking thing, it’s because Dumbledore is how he is. But he’d sacrifice anyone without a second thought if he thought it’d be for the greater good.”  
  
Remus laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, because Sirius’ fingers were reaching for his thigh.  
  
“Tell me what you like,” Sirius said.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Just tell me. Women. Men. I don’t know. Maybe you don’t like it altogether.”  
  
_I like you_ , Remus thought. ”Why did you do it?” He was certain Sirius knew what he was talking about. “In the bathroom. With Fabian.”  
  
“It felt good.”  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
Sirius’ palm rested on his thigh, heavier than it ought to have been. “I wanted to know what you’d do.”  
  
“What _I_ would do?”  
  
“Of course _you_ ,” Sirius said, ”who else?”  
  
“But I’m not –“  
  
“You aren’t what?”  
  
”I’m not good at it.”  
  
“But you’re gay,” Sirius said in a quiet voice, letting go of his thigh and touching his arm instead. “Fuck you, Remus. I always knew you were gay. You should’ve told me.”  
  
”You were so good at it.”  
  
“Bullshit. Remus, you’re an idiot.”  
  
He closed his eyes. His head was swinging a little but Sirius’ hand kept him in place.  
  
“So, how did it feel?” Sirius asked, running his fingertips on Remus’ scars. “When you were listening to me and Fabian?”  
  
“I wasn’t _listening_ –”  
  
Sirius pressed his thumb on one of the scars that hadn’t completely healed yet. It probably shouldn’t have felt good.  
  
“I didn’t like it.”  
  
“You didn’t like me having sex a few feet away?”  
  
“It wasn’t that,” Remus said. He should probably stop now. He was too drunk for this. “Ever since I’ve been thinking about, you know, what it would be like.”  
  
“What would what be like?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“Yes, you do, you idiot. Just say it.”  
  
“If you wanted to,” he said and cleared his throat. “We could be casual about it. You wouldn’t have to kiss me or anything.”  
  
Sirius let go of his arm, placed both hands on his neck and kissed him.  
  
“It’s just the two of us, anyway,” Sirius said onto the corner of his mouth, Sirius’ stubble tingling on his skin. “We’re going to get each other out of this fucking mess alive. And if Greyback fucking comes for you, I’ll stand in between. You know that. Why do you think I’d mind some kissing?”  
  
“I’ll be bad at it.”  
  
“Bad at what? Sex? Because you haven’t done it? Merlin, Remus, think about all the things I’m bad at. I can’t fucking tie my shoelaces.”  
  
“It’s not the same.”  
  
”Of course it is,” Sirius said. “You just need some practise. How drunk are you right now?”  
  
He grabbed the front of Sirius’ shirt, watching his own fingers clinging to the fabric. Sirius smelled of whiskey and old linen and the soap they both were using, but maybe if he pressed his nose against Sirius’ neck -  
  
“How would you like it?” Sirius asked, fingers following the line of Remus’ jaw. “Just tell me how you would like it. Just tell me.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Maybe we should take a break,” said the pink-haired woman. But she stayed in the room even after the man had left. When the door opened and closed, Remus tried to see if someone was in the corridor. But of course Albus could listen to them anyway. Albus probably had charms in every room.  
  
His cup of coffee was empty. The pink-haired woman was trying to hide that she was watching him. He took the empty cup between his hands. The lights were too bright. Back in 1980, in a place he couldn’t even name anymore, Sirius had dimmed the lights when he had asked. _I’m not going to fuck you_ , Sirius had said, _not the first time._ But he had demanded. _We’re going to have to take it slow so it’s going to take ages_ , Sirius had said. It had. In the end, Sirius had come inside of him and later finished him with his hand, and he had lain awake with the thought of Sirius burying himself in him, as if he wasn’t completely alone in his skin anymore, as if there was now something between them that couldn’t be broken.  
  
“I saw him,” the woman said. The cup of coffee fell from Remus’ hands onto the floor but the woman barely seemed to notice. “A month ago. Of course he’s in pretty bad shape these days. But he said your name.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“When we stopped in front of his cell, he said your name. As if he was looking for you.”  
  
_Remus_ , Sirius had said, lying in the narrow bed with him in 1980, all their limbs entangled together, Sirius’ breathing warm and damp on his neck. _Remus, Remus, Remus. We should’ve done this years ago. We should’ve fucking kissed years ago._  
  
“I’ve hated him for twelve years,” Remus said. “That’s longer than I knew him.”  
  
The woman opened her mouth but closed it again, when there were steps echoing from the corridor. The man came in, closing the door but not sitting down.  
  
“Dumbledore wants to see him.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
“The thing is,” Albus said, sitting behind his desk in his huge office in which papers floated around and the furniture crept on the floor, “Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban four days ago.”  
  
Remus was looking at the chair that clearly didn’t want to stay next to the wall. Then he realised what Albus had just said.  
  
“I know this comes as a shock,” the old man said in his most gentle voice, the one Sirius had trusted least. “And I’m genuinely sorry about how long that questioning took, Remus. But the thing is, we need to be sure where we stand with you.”  
  
“What do you mean,” he said but his voice didn’t really work, “what do you mean, Sirius escaped from Azkaban?”  
  
“We don’t know where he is,” Albus said, “and to be honest, perhaps you should consider the thought that he might be coming for you. He killed Peter. He’s the one responsible for getting Lily and James killed. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if he wanted to finish the job, you know, by killing you.”  
  
Sometimes, Remus remembered, he had wondered how it was possible that Albus said the most awful things with the kindest voice. Now Albus was looking at him, straight through him like he always had, as if Remus wasn’t a person after all but rather a puzzle. But that had been because there had been a war going on and Albus had been in charge. You couldn’t start seeing soldiers as people or otherwise you lost the war.  
  
“Remus?”  
  
He wondered what Albus could see in his face. His mind felt blank.  
  
“Remus, we’re going to need you to come again tomorrow. Is that okay?”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“And,” Albus said as an afterthought, ”if he happens to try to contact you, you’ll tell me right away, won’t you?”  
  
“Of course,” Remus said.  
  
Albus stood up. Remus stood up. He couldn’t remember where the door was but Albus pointed at the right direction. In the corridor he still felt Albus’ eyes in his back. He took the bus to his flat that smelled of tea and dust. He should probably clean it. He made tea on the stove like he always did, probably because it took more time that way. And he had time. That was one of the things he had slowly begun to realise in the early 1982. He had lost everything he had and now what he had left was a lot of time and nothing to fill it with. He had empty seconds and empty minutes turning into empty days, weeks, months, years. Decades.  
  
He read an averagely bad novel until two at night and then he lay in his bed for three hours watching the ceiling and not thinking about Sirius. He had barely fallen asleep when the morning traffic woke him up. He put the kettle on and sat at the table on which Sirius had once fucked him in the autumn of 1981 when everything had already been out of place and he had had no way to fix it. But he had never suspected the spy was Sirius, had he? And what did that make him? He was naïve and stupid and also so fucking in love. Had been. He _had_ been in love. He hadn’t realised the one person he had trusted had turned on him. And now Sirius was out of Azkaban and probably wanted to kill him as Albus had said, only the more he thought about it the less it made sense. He was nothing to Sirius. He was just someone Sirius had fooled. Albus should’ve been worried about Sirius trying to kill Harry, or Albus himself, or anyone else for that matter. Sirius had never trusted Albus, not really. Sirius had always said that in the end Albus would sacrifice anyone of them without a blink if there was a reason good enough.  
  
And Remus had trusted Sirius with his fucking _life_ , and every time Sirius had got his back.  
  
The water was boiling. He poured it in a cup that was almost clean. Maybe he should leave. He could go back to Wales. His parents were dead but the cottage was still there. He could probably fix it.  
  
The streaks of sun had just reached the kitchen table when he happened to walk to the living room window. It was a beautiful day, just the kind he hated. And there was a black dog sitting in the alley between the stone wall and the garbage bins.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I think they know about us,” Sirius said to him, probably in late August 1981, when the silences always stretched for too long and fucking often felt like revenge. But some moments were good.  
  
“What?” he asked. Sirius had one arm wrapped around his shoulders and he had pushed his knee in between Sirius’ thighs but mostly for warmth. The blankets had fallen onto the floor some time ago and he couldn’t reach his wand without moving.  
  
“I think they know we’re together,” Sirius said in a lazy, after-sex voice. “Lily knows at least. She’s become sharp as hell now that she’s depressed.”  
  
“She’s not depressed.”  
  
“Yes, she is,” Sirius said, “she’s been since Harry was born. We just don’t talk about it because there’s a war going on.”  
  
“But she’s not –”  
  
“And James is worried as hell. And Peter has more charms in his flat than they have in the Ministry. We’re all going mad here but we can’t deal with it because the war is always more important.”  
  
Some days, Remus imagined getting out of all this alive. Then, perhaps, he and Sirius could be together for real. They would make plans and buy furniture and take a trip to the countryside and maybe tell their friends and families.  
  
“I think they’ve guessed somehow,” Sirius was saying now. “I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the way you always look at me.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“Like you want to have me right then and there.”  
  
“Sirius –”  
  
Sirius laughed and ran his fingers across Remus’ chest. “The sexual tension is just incredible. Even when we’re working. _Especially_ when we’re working. Maybe that’s why we didn’t solve the Prewett case. Whomever we tried to question was always too confused about the amount of sexual tension in the room.”  
  
“Stop saying _sexual tension_ ,” he said. Sirius’ hand on his chest had stopped at the _Prewett case._ “I love you.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Sirius said, “me, too. Obviously. But do you think that we’re capable of that, really? Capable of loving someone? Because all that we’ve been thinking in the last four years is how to end this fucking war. Or actually all we’ve been thinking is whatever Dumbledore asks us to think. Because we have to win the war.”  
  
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you. About your –”  
  
“Say it. Fucking hell, Remus, just say it.”  
  
”About your cock.”  
  
He loved the way Sirius laughed. “But, listen,” Sirius said after a while, the smile fading from his voice, “if someone guesses that we’re together, they’re going to tell Dumbledore. Or Dumbledore is going to read it in their minds or something. He’s going to know. And he’s going to use it.”  
  
“Like how?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Sirius said, sounding worried. ”I don’t know yet.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
He almost fell on his face trying to walk down the stairs. It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible. And if it was, Sirius had probably come to kill him just like Albus had said. He tried to hold his wand steady but his hands were shaking, and then the corridor ended and he pushed the front door open. The sun was too bright. He couldn’t see anything. Sirius would hit a curse right on him and he wouldn’t see it coming, just like he hadn’t seen it coming twelve years ago. Everything would be over. But fucking hell if he didn’t get one good look at Sirius’ face before that. Fucking hell. Fucking -  
  
The dog was sitting next to a garbage bin, watching him. He pointed his wand at it. Perhaps he had finally lost his mind. And he couldn’t possibly recognise Sirius as a dog twelve years later, could he, only the dog was watching him as if he knew him through and through, every secret he had, every sore place in his fucking soul, every way he could be hurt.  
  
The dog turned and started walking down the alley.  
  
Remus stood in place for a second, hid his wand, and followed.  
  
He could’ve been just a dog. The way he chose the turns he took seemed slightly random. But he certainly was careful not to lose Remus, because once in a while he glanced over his shoulder. He was greyer than Remus remembered but then again, Remus was greyer as well. And he couldn’t imagine what twelve years in Azkaban did to a person and that was exactly why he never imagined it, except sometimes at night when he couldn’t sleep, or when he was drunk but not drunk enough. Sometimes he wished Albus would’ve killed Sirius. Certainly dying would be gentler than slowly losing yourself in a place like that.  
  
The dog led him through a park, onto the bridge that went over a muddy pond and to a quiet subway, and there the dog stopped, barked once, and turned into a man.  
  
“Can you Apparate?” Sirius asked. His voice was hoarse and his face looked dead.  
  
“Yes,” Remus said. ”Where?”  
  
”I don’t care,” Sirius said. ”Away from here.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
The wind coming down the hills was colder than he remembered. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his head after taking so many turns. Perhaps he should’ve been wondering why he had been worried about someone tracking their Apparation and following them, but he was still holding Sirius by the arm and couldn’t let go even if Sirius fell on his knees in the dead grass and dragged him along.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, staring at him with eyes that seemed the only thing alive in his face. “Remus. Remus.”  
  
“He said… Dumbledore said you’re going to kill me.”  
  
“I thought you were the… spy. I fucking…”  
  
“But it was you.”  
  
“No.” Sirius’ mouth curved as if it was attempting a smile. “No. Peter.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius said, laying down on his back in the grass. “You brought me… here.”  
  
“I don’t know why.”  
  
The cottage was still there and it looked emptier than it had before. Remus took his wand and cast a few charms, but there was no one else within three miles.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Sirius said. His eyes were closed and his fingers opened as if looking for Remus’ hand. The sky was grey and the grass was moving in the wind.


End file.
